A University of Glasgow graduate is on course to scale the production of commercial robotic lawn mowers, having secured £2m in funding from Scottish Enterprise, Metaplanet, Ironwolf, Superangel and Specialist VC.
Joan Kangro, originally from Estonia, but now living in Glasgow, established Kingdom Technologies in 2018 after graduating. With support from the European Regional Development Fund through Glasgow City Council’s business advisory scheme and The University of Glasgow, he then went on to win in the Scottish Edge Wild Card competition and RSE Unlocking Ambition Enterprise Fellowship.
Kingdom Technologies develops autonomous robotic lawn mowers for commercial customers requiring large areas of grass to be mown. The company already lists golf courses and local authorities among its clients.
The company has also developed a number of novel and patented technologies for mapping, localisation and robotic perception.
Developing resilient and dependable robotics products requires a long piloting period to ensure they are capable of performing in a range of environments. Kingdom has already run two-year pilots with a number of customers.
The funding will be used to support the growing demand for its services and to expand internationally. The business has nearly 400 pre-orders from customers across the UK, Europe and US.
Kangro said: “Having conducted a lengthy period of development, we are now ready to expand our service across the UK, Europe and the US.
“We know from these extensive pilots that we have a reliable and robust product capable of operating in complicated environments - the next phase of our business is to manufacture more products and expand our offering to the US market.”
Law firm Harper Macleod advised on the latest funding round, as well as on issues such as employment and immigration law, as Kangro seeks to double his nine-strong team of robotics developers in Glasgow.
“Scotland is good at developing robotics engineers and developers,” said Kangro. “However, the attraction to then move abroad is very strong.”
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